chpettit19

Thanks for looking that up! I think you're probably right about things for those players. If they don't really plan to contend in 2022 I would hope they see Garlick as expendable if it comes down to him or a solid rule 5 prospect. I don't blame the FO for the Baddoo situation, but losing another player like that for a 30 year old platoon corner outfielder (short side of the platoon for that matter) in a season you aren't trying to contend would be a bad move in my opinion. I don't see 30 as a magic age where players fall apart, but Garlick seems to be who he is and a RH platoon corner OFer is incredibly replaceable. I assume TD will have someone write up a pretty detailed look at the 40 man situation after the season and there should be some good discussion on here about what choices we'd all make.

I think having an option left is big for him. I'd bet he stays on the 40-man and is with the Twins org next year. I'm not a big fan, and don't think he'll have enough contact to be the Sano type player that appears to be his ceiling. But you don't just get rid of former 1st round picks with his minor league production for nothing. I'd take a Gil for Cave trade in reverse. Or have him as part of a package for someone closer to the majors than a Gil for Cave type flier deal. But I don't like the DFA idea and just lose him for nothing in order to save a prospect on the 40-man who likely doesn't have the minor league track record of Rooker, let alone the flashes at the major league level. I don't know the option situations (too lazy to look it up right now) for Refsnyder or Garlick, but if they don't have options left (and I'd guess they don't, but not sure) I'd keep Rooker and his option over them. I'm a believer in Martin and think he'll be up next year at some point and he's a better Refsnyder type utility guy. Garlick plays better defense than Rooker (most of us on these forums probably play better defense than Rooker), but I'd take Rooker's bat and option over Garlick. Garlick is a AAAA player and without an option I'm definitely not risking a prospect to the Rule 5 for him. Offer Refsnyder and Garlick minor league deals and if Rooker falls apart next year DFA him and give one of them his 40-man spot then. I don't think Rooker is a long-term piece as I don't think he'll ever hit enough to be a pure DH and he has negative defensive value, but there aren't enough guys who need 40-man spots who have done what he has in the minors so DFAing him for one of them is saying you're expecting them to improve their performance at the major league level compared to what they did in the minors. Bold bet and I'd rather take 1 more year of Rooker with an option left before making that bet.

No, it doesn't take them 16 years to wash out, but that isn't the point. If you're going to use WAR accumulation as a variable you have to take the 16 years, or 6 years, into account. You're mixing and matching "reach MLB" and "accumulate MLB WAR." The Twins have seen drafted players reach the majors within those timelines you're providing, with even more who would've if it weren't for a combination of a global pandemic and injuries. My disagreement is in that you then turn around and compare them to the Fangraphs WAR totals which isn't a realistic measure for guys who are 4.5 years removed from being drafted at the most. At this point you can gather hard data on "reach MLB," but not "accumulate MLB WAR." The breakdown you're doing is much more of a prospect ranking list. You don't believe in their prospects. That's really what you're saying. You're putting their prospect list (of only their drafted players) in the 15-20 range of the league basically. I think that's a far more useful exercise at this point than attempting to grade their drafts. You don't like their strategy and don't believe in their drafted prospects. That's fair. I disagree with a number of your projection grades as I just think it's far too early to be calling some of those guys busts, but that's why we come on TD. But your draft grades right now are really just you giving your personal projections on what you think of these guys. Useful exercise and I've appreciated your takes. But, to me, that's not how a draft should be graded, and this is way too early to grade any of their drafts. Although 2017 and 2018 drafts do need to show some MLB results next year (they've already started to) and Cavaco needs to step up next year.

Again, you're ignoring the timeline. Players from 2000 had 16 years(!) to make it to the majors and accumulate WAR in that study. Larnach has had 3, with one of those being a pandemic cancelled minor league season. That article isn't even bold enough to try to grade drafts 4 or fewer years removed. They waited a minimum of 6 to start looking at things. That's the point. I can appreciate you not liking the Twins draft strategy, and agree that they have boxed themselves in with guys like Sabato and Rooker who are bat only (I never liked the Rooker pick), but giving the FO F's on Cavaco and Sabato especially is outlandish to me. Sabato is putting up Sano type lines now. If he has a Sano type career that's a win for the FO. Your post was meant to grade the FO for their drafts, but you just can't do that at this point. I mean you've written Larnach off after his first taste of the bigs when he was called up before he was ready. I can't even imagine how badly you'd shred the Giants for the Joey Bart pick at #2 in 2018. Or Alec Bohm at #3. The league found a hole in Larnach's swing and beat it to death. That's the game. Now he needs to close it and come back next year having made an adjustment. His college and minor league performances suggest he'll make an adjustment and come back at some point next year and have made an adjustment. We'll see. To me, there simply isn't enough data to provide the grades you are. It's ignoring the reality of the baseball draft and prospect development. It's really just you saying you don't agree with their "get possible difference making bats early" strategy. And that's totally cool. But it's nothing more than that. And that's totally cool, too. I appreciate the work that went into pulling this all together, and the back and forth on it, but this exercise is super premature. You simply can't judge these things this quickly.

Ok, give Larnach 0.2 WAR. He's still outdone what 93% of that entire class will do for their entire careers. How does that earn him a C? In the schools I went to being in the top 93% was an A. That's my problem. You're not using historical data and are crushing, or at least downgrading, picks that have either done better than you're giving them credit for or haven't had nearly enough time to make any kind of reasonable assessment of. Your expectations just aren't in line with MLB draft reality. Moral of this story is 4 years isn't enough time to grade a draft pick, let alone less than a season.

I think the disconnect here is that you provided data on how many players make MLB, not "succeed" (however you define that). So in the context of the data you provided those guys are "legit" in that they've made MLB and have fulfilled the criteria you provided.

So here's my concern. You mention it isn't uncommon for college players to reach MLB in 3-4 years, and I agree. You've used stats in the comments to show the percent of players who make it to MLB at all based on round drafted (and I'll add that it's 17.6% of all drafted players ever make the bigs). I provided data that only 83 out of the usual 1200ish players drafted in any single year (7%) ever reach at least 0.1 WAR. In their entire career, not within 3-4 years. You seem to be mixing "making it to MLB" with "establishing/doing well in MLB." If the mark is simply making it that's one thing, if it's doing well that's another. And I get that it plays into your grade of "C," but the tone of the original post and your comments following is more that the Twins are failing or that "C" isn't actually good enough. The FO has 2 draft classes that are 3-4 years removed from their draft year. Here are the results of their classes as far as who's reached MLB already and their bWAR: 2017: Lewis, Enlow Rooker (-0.2) Barnes (-0.4) Ober (0.9) 2018: Sands, WInder Larnach (0.9) Jeffers (1.1) So they've had 5 college guys reach MLB within 3-4 years (Jeffers 2, Rooker and Larnach 3, Barnes and Ober 4) with a pandemic year sandwiched in the middle of their development. They've had 3 guys already reach more than 0.1 WAR. 2 of those did it within 2 or 3 years of being drafted. Arguments could be made that Lewis, Enlow, Sands, Winder, and Canterino would've debuted this year were it not for injuries which would give them 10 guys to have debuted in MLB between 2 and 4 years (including 2 HS picks) of being drafted with a pandemic ruined season mixed in. I just think it's far too early to judge their drafting, or drafting and developing, beyond comparisons to things like MLB.com, etc. rankings that teams couldn't care less about as they're based on far less data than their internal rankings. I appreciate the the dialogue, though. Fun to have some back and forth about this stuff. I just disagree with labeling any 20 year old with less than a season's worth of ABs a near bust already, or even a college kid just wrapping up his first season. Bust is too strong of a word for me. Appreciate the effort that went into doing all this, though!

Do 2/3, 1/2, 1/3 make it within 3 years of being drafted and with a missed year of minor league baseball? Because that's what you're judging Larnach by right now. My guess would be those numbers refer to their entire careers and simply making an MLB roster at some point. I mean Drew Maggi technically made it to the majors as a 15th round pick now. This just feels like you're missing a lot of context. What number of players from the 2017, 18, 19, 20, 21 drafts have made it to the majors, how many games have they played, and how are they performing? That's what you need to compare these guys to. According to a baseball america article from 2019 only about 83 guys from each draft ever accumulate even 0.1 WAR. Trevor Larnach is already at 0.5 and Jeffers is at 1.1. So with a completely lost season of development and within 3 years of being drafted those 2 are already within the top 83 players of what that entire draft class will produce on average and have basically filled the Twins quota for the 2018 draft. According to fangraphs the chances of a top 5 pick never accumulating 1.5 WAR in their career is 60%. 6-10 is 65%, 11-15 71%, 16-20 85%, 21-25 76%, and 26-30 84%. It's more likely than not that anyone drafted, even at the top of the draft will never get even 1.5 WAR. Odds of finding someone who produces over 2.5 WAR for picks 1-5 is 11%, 6-10 is 15%, 11-15 11%, 16-20 5%, 21-25 11%, 26-30 5%. Anyone picked after pick 15 has about a 5% chance of accumulating even 2.5 WAR for their entire career. I think we need to lower the expectations for what Falvey draftees should have produced by now. I mean Jeffers has already out performed his draft position within 3 years and in the middle of a pandemic, and as stated above they've already met their quota for players who reach 0.1 WAR for the 2018 draft. What more do you want?

I guess for me it comes down to what your expectations are. You say you're almost ready to label Cavaco and Sabato busts despite them having 1 year of professional ball under their belt. That seems incredibly aggressive to me. Cavaco has 332 total minor league ABs in 88 total games (according to MLB.com). Sabato has 361 in 107. That's less than 1 season of play and you're saying they're already likely busts? That's some tough grading right there. I haven't been overly impressed with their drafts (I did like the Lewis, Larnach, and Petty picks), but I don't think they've been awful (Cavaco has the athleticism that creates the type of ceiling you want with a 1st round pick and Sabato absolutely crushed some of the best college baseball talent during his 2 years in NC). If Lewis had reached the majors last year or this year as was predicted before a pandemic and freak knee injury ruined both those plans I think things look a lot different. In a season ticket holder Q and A Levine spoke a little to their draft strategy. They feel the data shows that getting high end, elite bats later in the draft is much harder than finding impact pitching. They feel that your best chance to get game changing hitters is to get them early and that's what they were attempting to do with the bats they took. Their approach is to go after guys with elite tools (Lewis and Cavaco) or guys who dominated college baseball (Larnach, Sabato, Rooker, Wallner, Soularie) and look like they could have game changing bats. They believe they can turn pitchers with an already elite pitch into more complete pitchers and can get those guys later. That's their approach to pitching in general, actually. Find a guy with a pitch they can already put in their back pocket (Ryan fb, Petty fb, Wisler slider, Maeda split, Pineda slider, Duran fb, etc) and then use their technology based coaching to develop more pitches (Balazovic, really good article on the athletic today about his new splitter), add velo (Ober), or improve control (hopefully improve everyone's). Now you can certainly debate if that's the correct strategy (I know it's pretty universally accepted that you take a bat over an arm if they're closely ranked as bats are more likely to turn out) or if they've executed their vision well. But I think it's important to at least take their strategy and goals into consideration. I also think expectations on baseball draft prospects need to be tempered to a great degree. As Dman pointed out, the success rate is miniscule. To truly evaluate any FO and their ability to draft and develop you need to compare them to every other drafted and developed player. Like is Larnach really that far behind his 2018 draft class peers? I'd argue no. There aren't a bunch of them taking the league by storm already. He's among the handful that have made it to the bigs, and none of them are world beaters yet. I wouldn't say he's the best of the bunch by any means, but he's not getting drastically outdone by the players taken after him or anything. To me it's too early to judge these drafts, or their draft and development ability at all. It's a total incomplete grade to me.

They didn't go 1-5, they went 3-5. They still have Miranda and Moran. That's part of the challenge of the Rule 5 and 40 man. It's not simply "who is going to be ready next year?" it's "who is going to be taken and able to stick with another org?" They were right that Ober would be ready and Moran and Miranda wouldn't be picked. They were wrong that Wells and Baddoo wouldn't be picked and able to stick. So they went 3-5. There are Miranda and Moran players in every organization every year. Those teams didn't miss on not protecting them, in fact you could argue they straight up won as they still have those young guys plus the players they were able to protect on the 40 man. The Twins failed by having bad players on the 40 man, not by not protecting Moran and Miranda.

You keep suggesting Brantley for the 2022 Twins OF. Do you expect the Astros to cut him or the Twins to trade for him? Because he's under contract for $16 million with the Astros next year. And at his age and with his knees (currently on the DL with knee problems) he's a much better fit for DH than LF.

I find it interesting that so many people see "redundant" players on the Twins roster. I mean I guess the argument could be made that they have an abundance of OFers, but none of those guys are good enough to bring back any kind of useful arm. If having more than 9 players for the lineup equals redundancy or abundance then, yes, the Twins have that, but I don't see the Twins having much more than 9 guys for their lineup. Who are all these redundant players people want to trade? Arraez? Isn't he our insurance plan for Donaldson and one of the best bats we can run out there? Refsnyder? Who's trading an arm for him? Larnach? Solid prospect, but just got sent down after the league "figured him out." He may bring back a guy along the lines of the guys in this post, but that doesn't solve our pitching problems. The Twins need frontline arms. I don't see the prospects in the system to bring those back right now. Sabato had an awful start to the year. Larnach got sent back down. Kirilloff is a core piece for the Twins. Arraez isn't a power hitter so you won't get a big time pitcher back for him. Lewis hasn't played a baseball game in 2 years. We just brought Martin in, and he's probably good enough to be part of a package to bring in a big name arm, but who else are you putting in that package? With the injuries that ravaged our minor league arms I don't know that adding just 1 of them to a package with Martin returns you a guy like Marquez or Alcantara so you're talking multiple of our higher end pitching prospects plus Martin and now we're right back to having to sign a bunch of stopgaps while we wait for more prospect arms to arrive. I think free agency is the way to go this year as I just don't think we have the pieces to move to bring back real pitching unless you're talking about trading Polanco (I don't think Buxton brings back an elite arm). At some point we have to run our young arms out there and see if the pipeline can produce. If I'm ownership I'm giving the greenlight to spend on some frontline pitching, but telling the FO it's time to put up or shut up about the pitching pipeline. Next year is the year. Time to see the arms they've been developing. If the Twins can't develop their own pitching it's a lost cause. I'm more of a fan of this FO than many on here because I believe in their 21st century approach and the systems they've set up to develop prospects, but it's time to see. The lost year was unfortunate and now all our young arms are in their mid 20s. I don't want one of the guys on this list at the cost of giving up something from our system when the system should be ready to produce the kind of results these guys have shown to produce at the ML level. It's time to see what our system has. Spend free agent dollars to front the rotation then let Ober and Ryan start the year in the rotation and give everyone else shots, whether in the pen or rotation, throughout the year and see where we're going. Wasting 2022 and going into 2023 with the same questions about the system producing arms would be the worst case scenario.

He should remind you of Tony Gwynn, not Lenny Green. You just keep proving more and more that your eyes are entirely unreliable. Lenny Green hit over .290 1 time his entire career and was a career .267 hitter. In 913 career PAs Arraez is a .312 hitter. Gwynn and Arraez both started their major league careers at the age of 22. Now Arraez isn't quite done with his age 24 season, but close enough. And Lenny Green started at age 24 so this is his age 24-26 seasons. Arraez: .312/.375/.404/.779 6 HRs, 78 RBI, 84 BBs, 83 Ks, 4 SBs Green: .237/.302/.317/.619 4 HRs, 26 RBI, 31 BBs, 32 Ks, 9 SBs Gwynn: .329/.382/.415/.797 7 HRs, 125 RBI, 96 BBs, 60 Ks, 48 SBs One of these things is not like the others. One of these things just doesn't belong. Gwynn obviously had drastically more speed early in his career, but when comparing their hitting skills who does Arraez look more like? Was Gwynn greatly overrated? Again, you're more than welcome to dislike Arraez, but your reasoning (beyond being a bad fielder) is totally and completely inaccurate. He's 14% better than the average hitter even without hitting HRs according to OPS+. wRC+ he's 13% better. He's an above average hitter whether you like how he does it or not. Sorry for using my nerd numbers, but everywhere you turn they're proving your eyes wrong. And in the case of the Lenny Green comparison, drastically wrong.

Ah, yes. The old "I was proven wrong on my original argument so I will change it to something completely different" maneuver. It's a classic. I said you're entitled to feel Arraez is overrated. You original argument of him striking out looking in big spots too often was completely absurd, but an argument that he isn't a good defender is absolutely correct. You should've started with that one. Oh, and I also appreciate you using those "math nerd numbers." Makes me feel right at home.

You're proving my point. Name 2 then. Your memory is no competition for the stats. You've picked a position that is entirely impossible to defend. Your stance is wrong and it's provable. "I feel like" is not a defense against "the physical proof shows." Your opinions aren't a defense against my facts. It's patently absurd to suggest Arraez strikes out too much no matter what variables you want to try to attach to the situation. There's no argument you can make to truly defend your stance beyond "this is how I feel." You're certainly entitled to not like Arraez, not like the type of player he is, feel he's overrated, wish the Twins would trade him, be upset about an instance (or 2) where he was caught looking in a big spot, or anything else along those lines. But when someone is one of the 5 best people on the planet at something you can't say they are bad at that thing. It's simply ridiculous.

Name 5 times that he watched a 3rd strike go by "when the at bat really counts." This is exactly why front offices all around the league use the numbers and not just their memory for things like this. Arraez has struck out 43 total times this entire season and you're on here acting like he's watching 3rd strikes go by constantly. Your brain locks in on the moments that created the most emotional reaction for you and that appears to be a called 3rd strike or 2 against Arraez and you've decided one of the 5 hardest guys in baseball to strikeout is striking out too much looking in clutch situations. It's absurd.

You "going by what you see" and not "some math nerd numbers" is exactly why we have the "math nerd numbers." When your assessment is that Arraez "too often watches a third strike go by" and he is in the 99th percentile for K% in all of MLB you are literally proving the point that just going by your biased eyes is an awful strategy. You're complaining that a guy who strikes out less than all but 3 guys in baseball let's too many third strikes go by (Arraez strikes out in 10.2% of his ABs, Brantley 10.1, Fletcher 9.2, and Newman 7.3 are the only guys better in all of baseball. Sorry for being so nerdy). That's your complaint right now.

Why would the Twins trade anyone to bring in a lesser version of Polanco instead of just moving Polanco back to short? Strong no. I'm not a huge Kepler fan, but trading him for Torres worsens the Twins defensively without adding anything to the offense. Don't see the fit at all. He hit 13 of his 38 HRs in 2019 off Orioles pitching. He's hit 10 HRs in 152 games over the last 2 years. So I guess I'll change my stance to not only does Kepler for Torres hurt the defense it hurts the offense. Kepler is who he is, but I'll take who he is over the outside chance Torres is a 30 HR/year guy who will suddenly figure out how to play SS. Torres has negative trade value.

That 117 is what their payroll is after dumping money at the trade deadline of a lost season. All of those numbers are based on current rosters, not the start of year payroll numbers. The Twins started the season at a higher mark. But that's not the point. The point is the first comment of mine you responded to had me literally saying I think they could reasonably be in the 150-160 range. All the percentages I presented were based on a 160 Mil payroll (almost 50 mil more than the disingenuous number you presented here). What is even more disingenuous is you then stating that the "payroll is what you set it," which seems to be a pretty straight forward disagreement with my numbers. If it wasn't then I'm not sure why you'd choose my comment to respond to. It seems more that you simply felt like complaining about the Twins payroll and chose my comment to base your complaint off then call me disingenuous for already having used the general payroll range you wanted. You're not arguing against anything I've said you simply tried to piggyback off my comment to complain about the Twins payroll numbers, provided disingenuous numbers, ignored me twice using the payroll range you wanted, and that, to me, is exactly what I was talking about in saying that those complaints are tired. If you want to have a discussion on payroll sizes I'm more than happy to, but you better bring TV deal amounts, ticket, concession, parking amounts, revenue sharing amounts, sponsorship amounts, and a whole lot more beyond "hey Atlanta is currently 12th and the Padres are 8th so the Twins should be in there simply because these 2 random teams are at these places." Not to mention that Atlanta is only going to make the playoffs cuz the rest of their division is trash, and the Padres aren't going to make it at all. Guess those higher paid players aren't guaranteed to win more games. Who would've thought?

Yes. And in the real world it's based on real numbers and 150-160 million seems reasonable. If your expectations are the Pohlads spending Dodger type money on payroll and lose 10s, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars a year you should probably find a new team to cheer for. "There's no cap so they could/should spend more" is a tired, nonsensical, and unrealistic argument.

The premise of this post/article/whatever-you-call-it is that Joe Ryan's scouting reports were wrong about how good 2 of his pitches were. The author states that the scouting reports are wrong and he's basing it on 34 combined changeup and curveballs between 2 starts. For that matter he's only thrown 25 sliders. Suggesting that dozens of people who scout pitchers for a living have misjudged the hundreds of curves and changes they've seen him throw because his first 34 in the majors went well is absurd. Click-bate headline without any real substance. But has produced some solid conversation on Ryan and potential. If Ryan is going to be as good as some people think the Twins should be in great shape pitching wise if 1/3 of their other prospects hit their ceilings. Brighter days on the horizon?

Can the Twins afford to pay an "ace?" Yes. Any team can. The question is what can they surround them with. According to the contract numbers in the original post the average "ace" FA contract from each year is 27, 26.5, 26.5, 27, 27, 28, 28, 26.6, 25.4 29.75, 30, 30, 31.5, 31.5. The average annual money for all the "ace" deals is 27.75 per year (I didn't include the 2M per year deferrals for Scherzer as that isn't a typical deal and isn't what anyone is actually talking about when they talk about signing players to these deals). I think 150-160 is a reasonable enough payroll target for the Twins. We'll go with the top end 160. Having 1 of those guys takes up 17% of your payroll. Having 2 of them takes up 35%. Having 1 would leave you with about 130 million to spend and having 2 would leave you with about 105 left to spend on the rest of the team. The question isn't whether or not they can afford any of these guys, or even whether those guys are worth their money. The question is can you build a world series contending team (or division winning, or whatever your goal is) with 1 "ace" and 130M or 2 "aces" and 105M. There's 24 or 25 other spots to fill. Don't have time to run the numbers right now, but that's the discussion that should be happening. I think the answer to all of these questions is always that you have to develop minor leaguers. Whether you draft them, trade for them, sign them internationally, pick them out of Ubers, or whatever. You need to develop your own talent and have them be good from almost the jump to be competitive. Even the Yankees and Dodgers do. Walker Buehler being an "ace" on a pre-arb deal allows them to do so much more with their already significant financial advantage. Add in Seager, Smith, and Bellinger on pre-arb or arb deals and it's outrageous. The Rays and As compete because they have young guys who contribute more than their contracts say they should. Too much discussion is based around free agent signings. Free agents are the compliments to your young core, not the other way around. So, yes, the Twins can afford those big deals, but it doesn't mean anything if their cheap guys are garbage. Just ask the teams we ran out there with a cy young award winner, 2 MVPs, an elite reliever, and a young stud #2 arm that also couldn't win in the playoffs.

If I'm remembering correctly Simeon Woods Richardson was also struggling with walks for the first time in his career in Toronto's system early this year. Would be interesting to look at walk, and injury, rates amongst minor league pitchers this year. I feel like somebody around here could find some data.

Oh there's definitely pros and cons to their strategy. I think it makes sense to avoid signing guys for more than they're worth. I mean the Padres would love to have Eric Hosmer and his 20M a year off their books. So it helps them avoid those bad deals that weigh them down. But you also miss out on the players you identify as having the best chance to succeed because you won't go higher than a certain price. It all falls apart when 100% (Cruz was technically a free agent, but he was returning) of your signings fail. My guess is they break free agents into tiers and say "these guys are worth up $X" and "these guys are worth $Y." Then they want to bring in a certain number of guys from each tier and they engage with agents. They pursue their preferred guy until the price gets above X or Y then move to the next guy in that tier. It's a logical approach, but certainly has some holes. And when you miss like they did this offseason there definitely needs to be some reflection on what lead them to their decisions. Good news is they can't be any worse than missing on everyone!

I don't know that their strategy is signing FA late as much as it's not going over what they have decided a player is worth. They're "in" on plenty of players early, but they set hard lines on contracts and won't go above what they feel the player is worth. That can push them out of some negotiations and leave them to only getting guys later when the player's market has come back down. Think it's a solid strategy in many cases, but not all. The SS market this winter will be interesting to watch as there's a chance somebody will have that same sort of strategy and end up with an all-star SS for much less than expected.